Okay so I’ve played a couple of casual matches with Krul and one ranked match. I used to play Krul as an early game powerhouse but there is so much ground to cover to the point where he feels like he’s literally just running around the map. And when he has no armor he’s so squishy to the point where doing a 2v1 invade against squishies is easier to do with Alpha rather than him. He’s a level 2 hero that doesn’t benefit much from the current 5v5 meta where everyone tends to stay at level 1. In my ranked match I wouldn’t have died much if my Ardan wasn’t trolling (saving Vanguard for who knows what). But when late game came and I had something along the lines of shiver, BP, and SH, I was practically able to frontline 3v1 and survive by sticking onto my opponent. The game would have been an easy win if it wasn’t for the Kensei going AFK, but whatever.
I built Shiversteel first and went with BP and SH. My plan was to go SS BP SH MJ Aegis and boots. Now I’m thinking that due to him being a very defensive hero in the early game (stay in bush and fight, basically waiting for the opponent) instead of invading.
I’m thinking of using him as a top laner that roams around the mid to top river trying to get his team ahead. And the lane would also give him a lot of gold. Perhaps light armor and book as starting items and then translate into t2 armor and buy shiversteel. He’s a really good hero that is able to secure kills and since no one buys PS anymore it’s even better (PS didn’t even work that well on me despite mortal wounds not getting any nerfs).
Thoughts about top lane Krul? He might be another supporter of the jungler goes top and invades enemy red.
Top lane you will get smashed by any decent bot laner like kinetic or Vox or even Ringo. All of those can kite the hell out of you and deny you farm while killing your turret…
There are very few heroes that can do top lane well. Alpha and Krul both don’t fit the bill…
It might possibly work I guess because of jungle rotations. He’s good at it and very quick at rotations because of passive. Even faster than Flicker. Problem is if he gets shut down early he is completely useless and doesn’t offer anything (and no AoE) as for example GJ or Flicker or Ardan. I might try it though.
Well you see there are two ways to play top lane. One way is too rotate around the map keeping a jungle presence and not a lane presence (this keeps you a little bit low on gold unless you manage to get some really good flanks off but it keeps you at a really nice level) or stay in lane the entire game which gives you gold to buy inexpensive items but not much levels. With the first method you tend to lose turret (unless you’re jungle is having some really nice rotations or you flanked people so hard that you’re ahead) while the second is safe. The first is risky but it might mean that you can shut down the enemy WP laner and maybe even the jungler.
You may be thinking how does one actually rotate? Well due to how bot and jungle gather up at your CP treant you can getaway with taking your healer while the enemy is clearing or even take the enemy camps if your team is contesting. The best part about Krul is that since there are so many bushes you can just stay in a bush and kill the enemy bot laner at level 2 (as Krul does best in the bushes due to him having perm slow).
A really good comfort pick for the first method I talked briefly about is Grumpjaw. You can pick up a banner and 2v1 quite easily against mostly any bot and jungle duo. There are counters like Tony though which ruin your invasion tactic, but if that happens you can revert to method 2.
Another good thing about method 1 is that you can switch to method 2 at any time and sometimes you might even be forced to if the enemy captain decides to outrotate.
My Krul idea is pretty experimental as I haven’t tried it in high tiers yet, but Alpha I know works for sure. She’s best as a last pick against a squishy burst duo such as Baron and Anka. She can easily 2v1 and sustain throughout the fight by building something along the lines of a weapon blade + whatever you want. She does get countered by stuff like Tony and Rona so that’s why it is primarily a counter pick. She has good engages as well and two lives so she fits the build as a top laner.
Breaking Point stacks internally instead of externally which means that if you do a set amount of damage during a time span of constant attacking you will get one stack. And with that one stack it helps you get more stacks till you have 25. Well yeah the one I’m mostly talking about is weakness stacks and tanking but since you go onto squishies you tend to get stacks pretty fast which escalates your damage over time. Since you eventually outdamage them no matter what because of weakness stacks you will eventually kill them. The best thing to do is be an unkillable frontline as your team deals with everyone else and finally decides to help you out. I might even consider SC instead of one of the defense items if they don’t have damage. If you do that then you can have notable damage in teamfights and also the ability to dragon rush because you have a lot of attack speed and true damage.
In 3s the build I’m talking about is really bad unless you have a hypercarry like Celeste who just needs peel. But if paired with someone like Ringo or Kinetic you better just go for the standard build and he is out of meta so he doesn’t really have one.
Well my build with Krul isn’t a carry build. It’s a utility tank one. BP is there to just output more damage over time so if the enemy doesn’t deal with you, you still have something to do. Basically increases your threat level for the late game opposed to something like SB. Krul has weakness stacks that gives him lifesteal on the enemy and reduces the enemies damage significantly. He’s able to go deep into the enemy carries and survive as long as he comes in with his perk. His team can choose to follow up or not because he won’t die as long as he’s AAing something.
You build Shiver to slow down the enemy and have some health. And SH MJ Aegis is meant for tanking attacks. The defense items can be swapped for SC and Pulse depending on the matchup.
And yeah the Krul will do a lot better with people who have crowd control such as Phinn and Fortress because he has more ways to stick on the enemy.
Grumpjaw also has the highest WR in the game right now so you might wanna try him out although it might not fit your playstyle considering your comfort pick is Catherine lol.
Krul is alright early game then becomes pretty powerful mid game with his level 6 spike and then becomes wortheless late game. It doesn’t matter what you build, krul’s playstyle is way to predictable and easy to stop you just gotta cc him in his passive. With this multiple tank/ hyper carry meta there is no way krul sticks to target in a 5v5 team fight you just die in a flash, if you wanna play a bruiser/initiator play grumpjaw or cath top they’re just superior in every way.